Not one who brings about their empire through military might, death, or destruction.

 

Like all of them, you mean?

Including the one we're alluding to?

 

I mean I get where @Arthellion is coming from. That last line [/spoiler] of Paul where he tells the Fremen to send the Landstraad to Paradise was chilling. Chani being so against the Lisan Al Ghaib narrative throughout the movie really drove home how Paul has co-opted the Fremen dream for his own uses, and the galaxy will now suffer for his hubris in thinking he could control a holy jihad in his name. [/spoiler]

But also Sandworms as weapons of war is kickass. I think its a thinking spectacle. Come for the insane visuals, leave with some thoughts on the corrosive nature of religion and the corruption inherent in becoming a savior/prophet/etc.

 

You’re letting your bias distort truth.

Jesus specifically advocated non violence.
Same for Buddha. There have been numerous messianic figures throughout history who attempted such through non violent methods.

back on topic. Stilgar memes are fire.

 

Dune Messiah will be the end of Villeneuve's trilogy, supposedly. He doesn't want to deal with the whole Leto II/sandworm/God Emperor thing... at least for now. That'll probably change if the paycheck is big enough and he finds a workaround.

 

Okay, can I just say...

Spoiler

The pacing in the first third-ish felt a bit weird? Like there were one or two, maybe two-and-a-half scenes missing for Paul's acclimating into the Fremen ways? It's not a particularly big omission, but it felt a little loose.

Otherwise perfectly fine film, more than a touch discomfiting in tone towards the latter half. Visually very solid, sound... Eh, it doesn't feel like Zimmer's best, but I said similar about the first and that got an Oscar. (Later edit: also, not Zimmer's best is still plenty good and probably ahead of 95 % of OSTs out there without even thinking about it.) @CrackedMind's comment about tween-teen-early-20s (expanding, couple of Empty Suit Law Students were ahead of me in line and boy would they do that) adopting religious!fanatic Paul's attitude is so true it actually hurts too.

Also to chime in on the politically adjacent talk - imagine this getting pitched in a 2002 boardroom.

 

Just got back from Dune Part 2. Definitely want to ruminate on it more, but overall I really enjoyed it. I definitely have gripes with decisions made, but for most of those it was a function of time (all the political reasons for Shaddam IV to need the Atreides dead and the economic pressure from the Spacing Guild).

The two main things that annoyed me
1. Something about how the Fremen religion was portrayed just didn't sit right. This is one of those things I want to spend more time thinking about, but it felt very "I'm a 14 year old deep thinker atheist and this is what religious people are like."
2. The pacing felt off because they over compressed the timeline. Everything in this movie happened in less than a single human pregnacy. In less than 9 months, Paul became Muad'Dib, Muad'Dib becomes known to the Harkonnens and the Emperor as a threat and Paul becomes Emperor. That's insane. The movie would have benefited from having the 2 year time jump instead of a couple months.

Things I really liked
1. Something I've realized that I like in movies in good use of color, and this certainly had that. The brutal black and white of the Harkonnens in particular hit hard.
2. Princess Irulan's few diary narrations was a nice call to the novel's epigraphs and I wish there were a couple more.
3. I was worried when I heard Christopher Walken was going to be the Emperor, but he managed the right level of understated.

The cast knocked it out of the part as a whole.

Also, man they really danced around calling a jihad a jihad.

 

Netflix released a surprisingly good movie for once in Damsel.

Went in with no expectations as its a Netflix fantasy movie and I'm also not a Millie Bobby Brown fan, but it was fun movie. Its meant to be a twist on the cliche about sacrificing a princess to a dragon. Rather than dying, she survives and fights back.

They created a really good dragon that stands out from the dozens of others that have become popular in the last decade. Very agile, intelligent, and sinister.

Not a cinema masterpiece, but a fun way to spend an evening.

 

I watched Netflix's 3 Body Problem. I enjoyed it. Haven't read the books, haven't seen other adaptations (apparently Tencent made a show too).

I went in with no foreknowledge and honestly, enjoyed the hell out of it. Liam Cunningham stole every scene he was in. Eiza Gonzalez was miscast. I found the character Saul Durand kinda bland, but it's not the actor's fault imo. Everyone else was at least good. Benedict Wong's character is my second favorite after Cunningham's. Marlo Kelly as

Spoiler

nutjob alien cultist

creeped the fuck out of me, she was awesome.

But acting aside, the show is just a solid piece of storytelling and filmmaking. It didn't take itself so seriously as to bore me with philosophical bullshit and meandering conversations because aren't those just so thrilling when the screenwriter thinks they're writing something truly profound and I should be fucking honored to listen. It also wasn't too campy. Regardless of how realistic (or not) the technobabble is, I totally bought it.

Spoiler

The scene in the 5th episode when the alien AI explains how it's gonna fuck with human science to ensure humans don't advance to outpace the aliens' tech was brilliantly done.

If you're looking for something to scratch your sci-fi itch, I highly recommend this show and sincerely hope Netflix doesn't kill it after two seasons.

------------------------

In upcoming movie news, this looks fucking lit

 

I watched Dune part 2 and it was very good indeed. Alia not being born meant the whole time frame was unrealistically compressed but adding her birth and weirdness would have added even more time to an already long movie. Adding Leto's birth and murder even more so. Of course Leto not being around tied into changes to Chani's character.

Overall I think the changes were worth it to tighten up the narrative and get the movie down to a reasonable time. If I can get back to the theaters before it disappears, I'll see it a second time which I haven't done for a movie in a long while.

 

God fucking Damn you Fallout. Truthfully, I haven't watched it yet, and frankly don't plan on it, but what I've read is completely fucking gutting with how the history and the lore that the had games was treated. Things I loved. Fallout 1, 2, and New Vegas might as well have not really existed with the timelines given in the show, the state of the NCR, and the state of New Vegas.

Honestly I'm just here wondering if Bethesda was tying up loose ends of the west coast. Eliminating all of it. Watch Fallout 5 be set on the West Coast and we have this shit as the timeline and the lore, setting up their own vision.

I'm not really even mad. I'm just disappointed. Disappointed that the atmosphere from the trailers was so good. Disappointed that it was apparently very well acted. But just disappointed that it's mostly a complete retcon that Bethesda will likely use for Fallout 5 when it comes out sometime in 2031. A game I'll still probably buy because I'm a dreamer and will rationalize it all away somehow

 

Fallout is the equivalent of buying an amazing house and then burning it to the ground because you don't like the colour of the paint in the living room. It has great fundamentals; Walton Goggins, the aesthetic, WALTON Goggins, Ella Purnell, the costuming, and of course WALTON GOGGINS! There are some other flaws like the fact that the wire work is just terrible and that ruins many of the fight scenes for me.

And then there's

Spoiler

Vault Tec nuking the NCR and the Enclave being involved. It's all super safe Bethesda style writing where the look is supposed to matter more than the why and that sucks now as it always has. If they'd had the NCR collapsing under its own weight instead after winning the Legion War and rediscovering Nukes that would have actually slapped instead for example.

I didn't hate hate hate it and it will draw in people who might hopefully play New Vegas and it has Walton Goggins, but honestly the grand plot just sucks.

 

I enjoyed the fuck out of Fallout. The show and the games don't have to exist in the same continuity.

 

They do though. They're fully canonized.

 

I’ve really loved Fallout the show too, but I’m also someone who has never really played the games/been into the lore.

Walton Goggins is lights out as the Ghoul, and Ella Purrell is perfect too. All the bits at the vault are really funny in how oddball and offkilter they are. Seeing a

Spoiler

a pregnant lady with an eyepatch try to fuck a man wearing her dead husbands clothes and has her water break after he puts his hands in her pants and calls her “one wet lady” was transcendently weird/funny and reminded me of the Righteous Gemstones in the best kind of way.

Im only 4 episodes in so far, really excited to finish the show and get to the back half of the season. Can’t speak to its faithfulness to the canon, but I think it’s a very well-made show and i’ve enjoyed it thoroughly so far. 5/5

 

Sure, but does that actually mean anything?

I don’t see that corporations trading IPs around like baseball cards have any real say in what’s canon, besides legally.

 

My girlfriend and I finished Fallout and are fully obsessed now. 10/10, would recommend. Both of us are interested in exploring the games now, though its absolutely wild to me that Bethesda/Microsoft don’t have a Fallout game in the works to capitalize on all the hype/interest. I know they have the ps5 update for Fallout 4, which im interested in- but still. A remaster of 1/2/3/New Vegas would’ve hit like crack if it was scheduled to release this summer.

 

I agree, it’s a real missed opportunity for them. I was massively surprised and impressed by the show’s quality, and it sent me back to playing New Vegas.

I’ve been doing a bugfixed to hell-and-back playthrough of New Vegas after following the performance and bug fixes sections of this guide.
https://vivanewvegas.moddinglinked.com/

Gotta say I haven’t had such a smooth playthough before.